Page 17 of We Were Meant to Burn (Ashes and Ruin Saga #1)

Ihad never been an easy sleeper. Even before my time in the dungeon of Aguatitlan, my dreams would torment me. The wails of the dying haunted me even in the most secret places.

That night was no different.

I knew these walls.

I knew the feel of the training mats beneath my feet, how they sang when I fell, how they cradled my body just long enough to let me breathe before the next strike came. I knew the scent of blood, old and new, thick in the air like the lingering breath of the dead. I knew the way sound carried here, how screams echoed—stretching and distorting, swallowed by the high ceilings only to come crashing down again.

I was back.

Back in the Red Tower.

Panic sank its claws into me, my pulse hammering against my ribs. How? I had been in Endrina. I had been with Malakai and his crew. But now—I was here. The Tower stood, tall and unyielding, surrounding me like the bars of a cage. My first prison.

Sunlight poured in from the diamond-shaped windows high above, casting golden pools onto the crimson-stained floors. The light flickered as silhouettes passed by, training, fighting. I heard the sharp cracks of wooden swords meeting flesh, the low grunts of bodies hitting the ground, the jagged screams of those who couldn’t get up fast enough.

And then— her voice.

The ice of it coiled around my spine, cold and unyielding.

“You are a soldier.”

I turned.

Mistress Aze strode toward me, each step ringing in my ears, her metal spurs clinking like a metronome keeping time with my breath. She cut through the chaos like a blade, untouched, unshaken. The First Sword of the Malditas.

Her battle leathers were the same deep red as the blood that had been spilled on these very floors. The black braid down her back curled like a scorpion’s tail, sleek and coiled with venom. Her pale skin was covered, save for her face and her hands—hands that had shaped me, broken me, built me again. Her eyes, as dark and bottomless as an abyss, fixed on me with the same impassive stare I had known since childhood.

I felt my throat close. My pulse skittered.

I wasn’t supposed to be here.

But I was.

“You are a soldier,”

she repeated, circling me like a predator toying with its prey.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t ask for this. I hated her. I hated Mother. I hated all of it.

The whip came fast.

A silver tongue of pain lashed across the base of my neck, searing and precise. I gasped, my muscles locking, but I didn’t fall.

The tirsa coiled itself back around her wrist like a snake slithering home, ready to strike again.

“I am a soldier,”

I forced through clenched teeth.

“You obey orders.”

The tirsa struck again, this time behind my knees. My legs buckled, blood welling in thin lines down the backs of my calves.

“I obey orders,”

I spat, bitterness coating the words.

“You feel nothing.”

Lie.

I felt everything.

The agony of my wounds. The sting of betrayal. The rage—growing, pulsing, burning beneath my ribs.

The world shifted. Bent.

Time cracked open.

The training mats blurred, folding into years of pain and sweat and blood and screams. The walls stretched, impossibly high, then shattered like glass.

And then—there I was. Older. Colder. A blade, honed to perfection.

I stood in the center of the room, the white mat beneath my feet slick with my own blood.

A whistling sound cut through the air.

Instinct took over. My hand shot up, caught the end of the tirsa.

The barbed metal coiled around my palm, sinking deep, drawing fresh blood.

But I didn’t flinch.

I met Mistress Aze’s dark gaze with one of my own. Unyielding. Hardened. Empty.

“I feel nothing,” I said.

And it wasn’t a lie anymore.

Something inside me snapped—like a bowstring pulled too tight for too long.

I yanked.

The tirsa ripped from her grip, and for the first time in my life, I saw it. Surprise. Flickering, fleeting, gone in an instant—but it had been there.

Mistress Aze stumbled back.

The moment stretched—long enough for me to realize what I was doing, long enough for me to stop.

I didn’t.

The tirsa shot forward, coiling around her throat like a serpent answering its master’s call.

Her lips parted, but no sound came.

I pulled.

Her body hit the floor.

Her head rolled into the corner of the room.

The blood was so red.

This is what Mother wanted for me.

I had become exactly what she intended.

A weapon. A curse. The Nightshade of Rojas.

And there was no undoing it now.

My eyes snapped open.

Darkness pressed in around me, thick and suffocating, the shadows of the cave stretching and curling like unseen hands reaching for me. My breath hitched, ragged and uneven. My chest heaved as I struggled to pull air into my lungs.

It was just a dream.

My hands trembled as they shot up to my neck, fingers pressing into my throat, my collarbone, my ribs—searching for something that wasn’t there. No whip coiled around my skin. No fresh wounds bleeding into the floor. My hands traced up to my face, to my hair, my jaw, my temples, trying to ground myself in the present.

No blood. No tirsa.

Just my body. Whole. Shaking.

I swallowed hard, my throat tight and dry, and let out a long, slow breath. Just a nightmare.

A fire smoldered low in the center of the cave, its embers glowing dull red, casting flickering shadows against the walls. Dom’s snores rumbled through the chamber, steady and unbothered, while the others lay curled in their bedrolls, lost to their own dreams—dreams that, unlike mine, probably didn’t come drenched in blood.

I pushed myself upright, my limbs stiff, my heart still hammering in my chest. I rested my forehead against my knees and squeezed my eyes shut.

It was just a dream.

But it wasn’t.

Not entirely.

I’d had nightmares before—flashes of memories twisted by my mind, visions warped into grotesque horrors. But this . . . this had been real. The Red Tower. Mistress Aze. The training mats slick with blood.

The moment I became what Mother wanted me to be.

The moment I lost the last piece of myself that could have been something else.

A fissure cracked deep inside me. It wasn’t the first.

I had spent years gripping onto my fondest memories of Mother with clenched fists, hoarding them like rare gems. The times she had praised me. The times she had let me sit in her chambers while she worked, her voice curling around me like warmth in the cold. The moments when I had convinced myself she cared.

But at the heart of it, the truth had always been there.

Mother had been harsh. Cruel. Unyielding.

And I had loved her anyway.

I sucked in a sharp breath, pressing my knuckles hard against my mouth as the first hot tear dripped from my chin.

Why did my dreams always have to hurt? Why did they have to take every fragile thing inside me and rip it open, forcing me to look? To remember?

Ignorance had been easier.

Back when I believed the stories Mother told me. Back when I knew my place. When my world was black and white—kill or be killed, obey or die, serve or be discarded.

I had been so sure of myself.

But now—

Now, the cracks were spreading, and I wasn’t sure who I was anymore.

I curled tighter into myself, my fingers gripping the edge of my blanket. The embers burned low in the firepit, pulsing like a dying heart.

I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of Dom’s snoring. The rustle of the wind outside. The steady, soft breath of the others sleeping.

I told myself I’d feel better in the morning.

I told myself this was just another dream.

I told myself that the truths in my nightmares didn’t have to mean anything.

But I wasn’t sure I believed it.

A hand touched my shoulder, firm but gentle, pulling me from the abyss.

“Nix?”

Malakai’s voice was soft, careful.

I lashed out before I could think.

In a breath, I had his wrist twisted, my grip tight enough to bruise. Something bright and fluffy tumbled from his other hand, letting out an indignant chirp.

Malakai yelped, his body stiffening as he let me wrench his arm—but he didn’t fight back. Didn’t pull a weapon. Didn’t even shove me off.

As quickly as I’d struck, the realization sank in, and shame crashed over me like a tidal wave. I let go as if burned, my stomach twisting in revulsion at myself.

The alebrije chittered angrily at me before scurrying up Malakai’s arm, perching on his shoulder like a sentinel, its tail flicking with irritation.

I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t bear to see the expression he wore.

“Please,”

I whispered, my voice hoarse, raw.

"Just leave me alone.”

Malakai ignored me. Of course he did.

“Let me help you,”

he said, voice low, as he rubbed at his wrist.

I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head so hard it hurt.

"You can’t.”

My throat clenched. My body ached from exhaustion, but sleep was the last thing I wanted.

"No one can.”

Something inside me was breaking apart, unraveling thread by thread, exposing everything ugly, everything weak. I curled in on myself, digging my hands into my arms, trying to fold smaller, trying to disappear.

“Nix . . .”

The way he said my name, as if he were forming the sounds in his mouth with the utmost care, broke something in me.

“No,”

I snarled.

"I don’t want that from you. I don’t crave softness. I don’t deserve it.”

Malakai lowered himself to a crouch, the warmth of him cloying. Tempting me to lean in.

"No, but I think you want someone who won’t flinch when you bare your teeth.”

A sob burst from my lips.

"I am a sad, twisted, broken thing,”

I whispered.

"I am useless.”

Malakai didn’t leave. He sat beside me instead, his presence solid, unmoving.

“Your dreams aren’t real, Nix,”

he murmured.

"They can’t hurt you.”

A bitter laugh scraped from my throat.

"No. I guess they can’t.”

I turned to him then, my nails biting into my forearms.

"But that’s not the problem, is it? It’s not the dreams. It’s what they show me. The truth of who I am. Of what I’m capable of. No matter how hard I try, I can’t escape it.”

Malakai studied me, his violet eyes swirling with something unnamable. Something that looked far too much like trust. A trust unearned. A trust that I’d only shatter.

“You think I don’t know how this ends?”

I snapped, anger surging back to the surface—rising and retreating like the tide.

“Tell me—how does it end?”

“With me ruining you.”

I forced myself to hold his gaze, let him see the truth.

"I’m going to kill you. All of you. It’s just a matter of time.”

My voice cracked, but I pushed through.

"It’s what I am. It’s all I’ve ever known. I won’t know what I’m doing. I won’t even realize until it’s too late.”

My throat closed.

"You should kill me while you have the chance. Before I kill you.”

The words hung between us, heavier than the night.

Malakai flinched, just barely. Like I had struck him, not with my hands, but with something worse.

The truth, perhaps.

The one he refused to acknowledge.

His jaw worked, something unreadable flashing behind his eyes. Then, with a vast effort, he exhaled slowly and said, “Go back to sleep, Nix.”

“You don’t understand,”

I ground out, my hands tangling in my hair, pulling hard. My heartbeat was a frantic drum against my ribs.

"You don’t—”

A low growl rumbled in his chest.

Before I could react, Malakai moved, closing the space between us in a single breath.

My pulse skidded to a halt.

His face was so close.

Moonlight pooled into the cavern, catching on the sharp cut of his jaw, the highlights in his silver hair, the glint of his elongated canines as he bared them slightly. His violet eyes burned, bright and wild.

The alebrije let out a sharp chitter and, sensing something beyond its understanding, bolted off Malakai’s shoulder and dove into Lian’s blankets.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

His scent—spearmint and fir needles—wrapped around me, sinking into my skin, coiling in my lungs.

For a brief, reckless moment, my mind strayed where it shouldn’t. What would it feel like to lean in? To breathe him in? To let myself be wrapped in the warmth of him, to press my face into the hollow of his throat and let the world disappear?

A distraction. A temporary reprieve from the weight crushing my chest.

I curled my fingers into my palms, disgusted with myself. I didn’t get to want things like that. Not when I was what I was.

Malakai’s voice broke through the chaos in my head.

“I understand you just fine,”

he murmured, his tone quiet, but unshakable.

I blinked up at him, stunned.

“I understand that you had a bad dream.”

His voice was steady, as if grounding me. Refusing to let me sink.

“I understand that you’re scared.”

His gaze flickered, tracing my face, as if memorizing something I couldn’t name.

“I understand who you are. What you are capable of.”

His voice dropped lower, softer.

“Trust me, we all do.”

I followed his gaze, looking past him.

The rest of the camp was awake.

Lian sat up in his bedroll, the alebrije curled in his lap, his expression carved with sorrow.

Kerun’s eyes were narrow slits, but his hands were bunched into his blankets, betraying his fear.

Elías had an arm pressed protectively across Lian’s chest, as if holding him back from interfering.

And Dom—

Dom’s hand gripped the handle of his hatchet, his knuckles white. But his eyes . . .

His eyes weren’t burning with the usual fury.

Instead, he looked at me with something that made my stomach turn.

Pity.

I wrenched my gaze away, my hands curling into fists.

I didn’t know which was worse—being feared. Or being pitied.

Malakai’s voice was low and measured, each word carefully placed, like he was trying to steady a storm before it could break.

"None of that matters right now. Do as I say, and go back to sleep. The middle of the night is not the time to be beating yourself up about any of this. In the morning, I promise you’ll feel better.”

He had no idea what he was talking about.

I shook my head so hard the ends of my hair whipped against both our faces.

"You don’t get it—”

I couldn’t keep traveling with them. It was too dangerous. I was too dangerous.

These months traveling with them had lured me in, had seduced me into caring. Caring what they thought. Caring what they did. Caring for their safety. And I refused to let the monster that lurked inside me off its leash. I wouldn’t hurt them. But in order for that not to happen, I had to get as far away from them as possible. I was a danger. Not only to them. But to myself.

Dom had been right all along. And if he was right about that, then maybe Malakai was wrong. Maybe they should have left me behind.

I felt it like a sickness in my gut—this inevitable, growing fear that I’d turn on them without even realizing it. That I’d wake up one morning with blood on my hands and not even remember how it got there.

I had to leave. Now.

Everything happened in a blur. My body moved before my mind could catch up, my training kicking in, pushing instinct ahead of reason.

I lunged for Malakai, tackling him hard.

For a single heartbeat, I had the advantage—his back hit the ground with a dull thud, and I almost had the upper hand.

But almost wasn’t good enough.

Malakai was faster. Stronger. A Hada.

He flipped me in one swift, effortless motion, pinning me beneath him.

His weight was solid, his hips locked over mine, his forearm pressing my shoulder into the earth.

No.

I thrashed, roaring in frustration. I was the Nightshade of Rojas. I had fought warriors twice my size and won. I had trained my entire life for combat.

And yet—

Malakai barely flinched.

“Stop,”

he growled, batting my fists away like they were nothing.

"You’re only going to hurt yourself.”

I bared my teeth, bucking my hips, trying to break his hold. Nothing.

His fingers tightened, gripping my wrists, forcing them down at my sides.

I can’t stay here. I can’t stay here. I can’t—

“Let me go!”

I howled, my voice raw, wrecked.

Tears blurred my vision. I hated this. I hated him. I hated myself more.

Malakai let out a long breath, his body tense.

"I don’t want to do this, love.”

His voice was different now—low and soft. Pained.

Something flashed in his eyes. Something I didn’t want to name.

He released one of my wrists—and for half a second, I thought I had won.

Then I saw the syringe.

Cold realization slammed into me.

“Don’t you dare,”

I snarled, thrashing harder.

Malakai yanked off the safety guard with his teeth.

“You bastard!”

I howled. I fought, but I was weak, my body betraying me—

He plunged the needle into the soft flesh of my neck.

I gasped, my whole body going rigid.

“You left me no other choice,”

he murmured, his voice gentle. Too gentle. Like an apology that meant everything and nothing at the same time.

Everything blurred. My vision dimmed. My limbs went slack.

Malakai’s grip loosened as my body sagged against the ground.

No.

I tried to fight it, tried to hold on, but my eyelids grew heavier. The cavern spun in slow, dizzying circles.

Somewhere close, the alebrije cooed in distress, its small body pressed against my cheek, its fur warm and soft.

Above me, Malakai’s face hovered in the haze.

His violet eyes, stormy and haunted.

I tried to hold onto that image. The way he looked at me.

Like he wasn’t sure if he had done the right thing.

Then the darkness swallowed me whole.